Lightroom Classic Travel Workflow Guide
Lightroom Classic on the Road is a 31-page PDF guide to the Lightroom Classic travel workflow I teach on my workshops. It shows you how to import, cull, edit and back up on a laptop every evening of a trip, then bring everything into your main catalogue at home without losing a single rating, keyword or edit.
The question I am asked most before any trip is how to keep using Lightroom Classic away from home without coming back to a mess. Copying the main catalogue onto the laptop looks like the obvious answer, but it leaves you with two versions of the same catalogue when you get back, and only one of them holds the trip. A dedicated travel catalogue avoids that. It holds only the trip, it stays small and quick on a laptop, and two commands carry the whole lot home.
The guide follows the trip in order.
Setting up the laptop before you leave, including the Backups, Previews and Metadata tabs in Catalog Settings
An import that renames your files, adds your copyright and makes a second copy on another drive in one pass
Culling each evening with Assisted Culling, flags and a simple three-level star system
Lens corrections and synchronised settings that keep editing on a laptop quick
A backup routine for the road, including what a catalogue backup does not protect
Export as Catalog and Import from Another Catalog, step by step, with the one setting that catches most people out
Troubleshooting for missing files, short exports, duplicates and catalogues that refuse to open
Every instruction has been checked against Lightroom Classic 15.6 and is illustrated with 27 screenshots, built on photographs from my 2026 trip to Puglia. The guide finishes with The Whole Process, a colour-coded page that puts all fifteen steps of the Lightroom Classic travel workflow on one sheet, followed by a Quick Reference of shortcuts and a Travel Checklist to print and pack.
It is written for enthusiasts and camera club members who already use Lightroom Classic at home and want the same control on a laptop, whether the trip is a weekend away or a fortnight on one of my photography holidays. Windows and Mac shortcuts are given side by side throughout.
What you receive
A 31-page A4 PDF with a clickable contents page and bookmarks
Written for Lightroom Classic 15.6 on Windows and macOS
Second edition, October 2026
